


Harder Than It Seems

by afteriwake



Series: Discoveries [3]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Awesome Sally Donovan, Background Case, Case Fic, Friendship, Gen, Humor, Lestrade-centric, Male-Female Friendship, POV Greg, Sally Donovan & Greg Lestrade Friendship, Sally Donovan Appreciation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-06
Updated: 2015-11-06
Packaged: 2018-04-30 08:15:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,539
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5156639
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/afteriwake/pseuds/afteriwake
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Almost as soon as Sherlock goes away on his honeymoon, Lestrade is handed a case that requires the type of deductive skills that Sherlock usually provides. When Lestrade tries to solve the case the way Sherlock usually would, he finds it to be much harder than Sherlock makes it out to be.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Harder Than It Seems

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Chitarra](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chitarra/gifts).



> And finally, the last story in the trilogy for **Chitarra**! The prompt I was given for this story was " _Lestrade comes across a case he needs Sherlock for, but Sherlock and Molly are off on their honeymoon, so Lestrade tries to solve the case himself the same way Sherlock does, and quickly realizes deductions aren't as easy as Sherlock makes them seem._ " I had quite a bit of fun writing this one as well. As I know she's a fan of Sally I wanted to bring her into it as well so I hope you enjoy that. The tips used in this story came from the article "[9 Tips For Making Deductions Like Sherlock Holmes](http://www.businessinsider.com/9-ways-to-observe-and-deduce-like-sherlock-holmes-2014-7?op=1)" by Drake Baer.

Lestrade hadn’t been looking forward to Sherlock and Molly’s wedding. Not because he didn’t want them to get married; God no, not that. There weren’t two people better suited for each other in the entire world, in his not-so-humble opinion. No, it was just that after a wedding came a honeymoon, and their _particular_ honeymoon was going to stretch on for about a month. 

That was a month where he was going to have to go without his best consultant.

A month where he was going to have to go back to how it was when he was “dead.”

The Yard could survive without Sherlock. _He_ could survive without Sherlock. He’d obviously done it before Sherlock had ever started consulting and again when he’d been off taking down Moriarty’s network. But honestly, having him around made things a hell of a lot easier, and with retirement looming closer and closer easier was really quite nice. 

So he went to the wedding, which had thankfully gone off without a hitch, wished the couple a fond farewell and a safe journey on their honeymoon jaunt, and he’d laughed when Molly and Sherlock had given him a parting gift, a pamphlet called Nine Tips For Deduction. Well, it certainly couldn’t hurt. Then on Monday he settled in and waited for a case he knew would come, one where he’d have desperately needed Sherlock’s superior deductive skills.

He had it twenty minutes after sitting down that morning.

Because that was how his luck ran.

**Use All Of Your Senses**

He surveyed the scene. Man was found dead in his office, no obvious apparent cause of death. Just resting his head on his arms on his desk as though he’d died in his sleep. It was posited he could have had a heart attack but until they knew otherwise it was being treated as suspicious. However, there had been a robbery committed in the course of the evening, and because of that the two things were being connected for the time being until it was determined that they were not.

“Robbery is not our division,” Lestrade said.

“Yeah, well, suspicious death,” Sally said, moving around the body. “Takes precedence over the robbery, and we get both.”

Lestrade looked around. “Why couldn’t this wait until Holmes was back?” he muttered.

“Because Molly didn’t want to be an unmarried woman forever,” Sally replied in an amused tone. Then she took a whiff. “Greg. I smell chloroform. Very trace amounts, mixed with…cologne? Cool Water, I think. Or some cheap knockoff of that. Nothing really fancy.”

“How on earth was that missed?” he asked.

“Not sure,” she said. She looked around and then saw a pad of paper by the victim. She leaned over and traced a gloved hand over it. “Indentation on the paper. Someone wrote something on it. Could be important.”

“I’m starting to think the robbery and the homicide were definitely linked,” he said. He made his way to leave the office. “Nice job catching the chloroform bit.”

Sally grinned. “Thanks.”

**Be 'Actively Passive' When You're Talking To Someone**

It was always hard to tell someone they lost a loved one. He’d gotten good at it, over the years. Very good at it, though it wasn’t something he was particularly proud of when he was talking to people outside of the field. He didn’t particularly like to linger his attention on the people he was talking to, even though he knew he should. There were subtle signs, details he could pick up. Sometimes he would, if he had reasons to suspect them in the death. But this time, he didn’t, and Mrs. Dunham just seemed so distraught.

He just wanted to go and leave her in peace so she could stop trying so damn hard to hold herself together. It was so blatantly obvious she was just barely holding on that it was making him quite uncomfortable.

Finally they were done, and he and Sally quickly made their way out of the flat and towards the lift. He shook her head. “Hardest damn part of the job,” he said, shaking his head.

“I suppose,” Sally said quietly.

“Don’t tell me you’re getting cynical in your young age,” he said.

She tilted her head. “It just seemed…odd.”

“Oh?” he said, stopping. “Why?”

“There was no real tremor of sadness in her voice,” Sally sad. “No real emotion behind it. She seemed just slightly overwrought. Plus, her wedding ring seemed loose, and I swore I saw no tan line.”

Greg blinked. He’d seen none of that. “Well, _that’s_ interesting,” he said.

**Observe The Details**

“Greg, we’ve already been over everything,” Sally said, crossing her arms as she stood in the doorway of the victim’s office, crossing her arms. “Socco’s been over it with a fine tooth comb. I doubt there’s anything they’ve missed. No fibers, no fingerprints…nothing out of the ordinary.”

Lestrade began feeling around the open desk drawer with his gloved hand. “There has to be something,” he said.

She gave him a look with a raised eyebrow. “Trying to be Holmes?” she asked.

“Well, we need him,” he said, shutting the drawer and opening the one underneath. “And he’s off gallivanting around the globe on his honeymoon.”

“What we _need_ is good solid police work,” she said, moving into the office. “But if you absolutely think the scene needs another onceover, then that’s solid police work.” She went to the book shelves and began to look at each one. They worked in companionable silence for a long while before Lestrade sighed. “Greg?”

“It looks as though nothing is wrong,” he said with a sigh, hanging his head. “If Sherlock was here, Sherlock would spot it in a minute. Sherlock would take one glance at the room and see a book that was in the wrong place or a piece of paper that was filed in the wrong area.”

“That’s Holmes’s gift, I suppose,” she said. She nodded towards the door. “Come on. Molly’s replacement probably has the autopsy done by now. Let’s see what we can get from that.”

“Fine,” he grumbled.

**Find Quiet**

Molly’s replacement for the duration of her honeymoon told Lestrade and Sally that Mr. Vernon Dunham had suffocated while having an allergic reaction to the chloroform and the robbers had arranged him in peaceful repose to cover things up. It was an almost brilliant solution to a plan that had gone awry. So at least they knew the death had been unintentional.

They’d spent the day trying to figure out what had been stolen from the company but they were being stonewalled every inch of the way. It was almost as though the company wanted the whole matter swept under the rug, even with the incidental death of an employee. It was absolutely maddening, and he just got more and more frustrated. By the time it was time to call it a day he was practically seething.

He went home and wanted to try and make heads or tails of the case. He knew from John that Sherlock would sit in the quiet for hours, shutting out all outside distractions, going through his “mind palace” and sorting through information, piecing it all together until he had his eureka moment. Maybe it wouldn’t hurt if he did the same. He went to his flat, sat in the only comfortable chair he owned, cleared out his mind and tried to sort out what he knew and what he could deduce.

Three hours later the only thing he’d managed to do was give himself a raging headache.

Dear God, deductions were damn hard.

**Pay Attention To The Basics**

He showed up the next morning irritable and grumpy and with the lingering traces of the headache. Sally was at the whiteboard, with pictures on it and names, dates, diagrams… He stared, trying to make sense of it. “What’s this?” he asked.

“I had a thought last night,” she said. She went over to her desk and picked up a cup of coffee, bringing it over and pressing it into his hand. He raised an eyebrow and took a sip. Three sugars, healthy dose of cream, even an extra shot of espresso. Bless her. “What if we’re looking at this all wrong? What if the murder wasn’t an accident, and the robbery was the cover-up?”

He sat down on the edge of her desk, studying her board. There were names of people he didn’t recognize under Mrs. Henrietta Dunham’s picture, and some of those names had pictures attached. It was a rather basic rule in law enforcement that you generally killed a person for a few reasons: love, money or revenge. If it hadn’t been an accidental killing, and the chart Sally had made seemed to indicate that it very well might not have been, then it could have been one of those reasons. “You can tell me, but answer two questions first.”

“All right,” she said.

“How long have you been here, and how many cups of coffee have you had?”

“Since half past five, and four.”

He shook his head. It was going to be an interesting day.

**Manage Your Energy**

He supposed he should work through lunch. According to the pamphlet he’d been gifted, starving yourself was supposed to help focus the energy supplied to your brain. He’d heard Sherlock mention something like that, about how his brain was a machine and the rest of him was just an appendix, just cogs to the machine.

He had no clue how in the world the man did it.

It had been years since he’d worked through lunch. He knew he should focus on the case but right now all his mind could focus on was how good a ham and Swiss sandwich on rye would taste, or how nice some Indian would be, or whether the Thai place not that far from the Yard had a line out the door this time of day.

Finally he went and grabbed his coat. “Sally!” he called out.

“Yeah?” she asked, with what sounded like a suspiciously full mouth.

He stopped outside her desk and looked at the container on her desk. “What is that?”

“Quinoa-stuffed kale rolls with goat cheese,” she said. “My boyfriend dropped them off.”

He made a slight face. “Are they even edible?”

She rolled her eyes. “They taste fantastic, Mr. ‘I Live Off Of Takeaway.’ I’d share but I want all four for myself.”

“Fine. I’m off to go get some of my bloody takeaway before I starve to death,” he said, making a face. “Don’t solve the case before I get back.”

“Will do, Greg,” she said, grinning.

**Give Yourself Distance**

“We need to do something else,” Lestrade said. “We need to take our mind off of it.”

“Is that what’s in your pamphlet?” Sally asked, picking it up off the desk and thumbing through it.

“Yes,” he said, tilting his head back. “And it works for Sherlock.”

“Someone studied Holmes well enough to deduce him and got paid to write something John’s been writing for free for years,” Sally said, shaking her head. “John could make a mint off of it and he won’t. That’s friendship.” She tossed the pamphlet back on Lestrade’s desk. “So do you want to take up violin or something to finish solving this case?”

“I don’t know what else to _do_ ,” he said, giving a frustrated sigh.

“Why don’t you stop trying to be like Sherlock Holmes and go back to being Greg Lestrade?” she said.

He lifted his head up. “And what would you suggest Greg Lestrade do right now?” he asked curiously.

“Take his detective sergeant out for a drink at the pub since they’re off the clock, ruminate about the case for a bit, then go home, get some sleep and try again in the morning,” she said. “Maybe even attempt to actually make some real food at some point since I know you can cook? But seriously. Once the pints are done, let it go for the night. Let work stay at work, all right? Promise me, Greg.”

He nodded at that before standing up to get his coat. “I promise.”

**Say It Aloud**

He took a sip of his ale. “It’s got to be Jackson. Her other lovers are all accounted for.”

She leaned forward, putting her forearms against the table. “Okay. If it is Jackson, then how did he get into the office?”

Lestrade pondered that. There had to be a way. Had to… And then he paused. “Mrs. Dunham. What time did she leave her office?”

Sally thought for a moment. “Half past six. Got home at half past eight.”

“Traffic wasn’t that heavy for the trip to take two hours, her alibi isn’t airtight and her husband’s office was on the way. If she knew the code to get into the office, she could have met Jackson at the office, let him in, chloroformed her husband and then cleaned up the mess when he died before going home.” Lestrade grinned. “If she’d studied the area around her husband’s office she could know where all the CCTV cameras were—”

“But not the ones nearby the main public transportation areas,” Sally said with a grin. “And since they don’t have a car they’d rely on the tube, the buses or the cabs. So we just need to look at CCTV feeds nearby any of those places and we can find her.”

He shook his head. “She planned it. Look for Jackson. He’ll be easier to crack.” He grinned. “You know, about the only deduction tip that worked was talking it out.”

“Well, that’s because it’s common sense,” she said, grinning.

“True.”

**Adapt To The Situation**

By the time they got Jackson into custody, their superior had gotten involved. “He’s used to women flirting with him, being chatty and being charmed by him,” Superintendent Hoffman said, studying Jackson. “Donovan, pretend to be flattered.”

Sally shook her head. “I could probably wheedle something out of him that way, but he’d manipulate me. He’d try and dominate me. I’d lose control quickly.”

“Then Lestrade should do the interrogation,” he replied.

“Sir,” Donovan said. “Send me in. He won’t be expecting an alpha female to interrogate him. He’ll be unsettled. Unsettled suspects tend to make mistakes before asking for their solicitor. We have a fifty/fifty chance of him saying something incriminating before he wises up. If we send Detective Lestrade in there we lose that.”

“But it’s considered best to adapt to the situation,” Superintendent Hoffman said. “That’s the best way to get all the facts. To get proper deductions.”

“Sir, I read the same pamphlet as you,” Lestrade said. “And after all the twists and turns this case had, I have a newfound appreciation for the way Holmes works, and the work he does for us. But Sergeant Donovan has had the right instincts throughout the entire case. I think we should trust her judgment.”

Superintendent Hoffman looked from Lestrade to Sally and then back to Lestrade before nodding. “Very well.” Sally gave Lestrade a grin, squared her shoulders, and went into the interrogation room.

Twenty minutes later, she had her confession.

Lestrade couldn’t have been more proud.


End file.
